Who else uses a scythe?

BG_Farmer said:
I would class those conditions as good :)
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You can't clearly see just how bumpy the ground is there. Depth never really shows up on camera, and it's a constant up-and-down in that section, combined with lots of big ol' knotted grass clumps. The section at the very beginning is more forgiving but as soon as I move past the space between the barn and the shed it turns into mowing hell.

BG_Farmer said:
but those sudden stops when you hit something are why I quit using the level rotating arc stroke for anything but cutting smooth lawn type stuff! It can be a small sapling, a rock the edge of a dip or an 8" thick clump of mature orchard grass, whatever resist beyond the blades momentum will stop it and transfer shock back to the tool and, worse, the user. With a steeper pitched and crowned blade, a sweeping motion across the swath is less likely to have an obstruction stop the blade, and if it does, the shock is transferred back to the arms and shoulders mainly, not a twisted spinal column! Of course, the finished appearance is somewhat less smooth and even and the width of the swath reduced, but the difference in harvested grass/hay is negligible if at all.

Just my observations, but important to me because I think scythes are most useful in places most unlike the flat, smooth fields we most often see them used in on YouTube.
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If I were just mowing for the sake of the grass as a crop then I'd fully agree with you. However, this area was being mowed for foot traffic, and so a lower cut was needed. I only used sweeping cuts in areas where I was less likely to be stopped up, and for the sake of taking as much as I could per stroke without straining myself. You'll notice how I only use sweeping cuts at two regions in the video, and the rest is shorter, more abrupt strokes, many of which are at a lifted angle. This is a combination of using a long blade to get into little dips and valleys and also taking targeted shots at clumps since they would interrupt a longer stroke. I actually used a lot of sawing cuts, as well, when trimming up along edges of obstacles.
 
42,
You got me there! I do very little just for pretty :).

Understood about the roughness in video not being depicted accurately. I've been thinking about some videos myself, but somehow the camera makes me look older and fatter than I really am. :).

Seriously, don't take my difference in opinion/approach as negative -- nobody has done more for the American scythe than you in the last hundred years.
 
Hahaha--no worries! It's good to hear external feedback from folks 'cause it helps me figure out what's being communicated to folks, what their perspective is, and you may even catch something I'm missing. :)

I think there are lots of folks who have done more for the American scythe than me in the last 100 years! Heck--the Sta-Tite Snath Co. was only founded in 1921, after all. :D But thanks for the kind words. :)
 
Here's the boy with the wildwood snath and Swedish hybrid blade, cutting his first swath of the year. I'm so pleased, now we can cut gang style, which we did today.
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Fantastic stuff! Speaking of gang mowing, here's a lovely little short story about it from “The Industrial Enterprise” volume 16, 1909. :)

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Decided to see how thin I could bring the Seymour blade today. Here's a crummy cell phone video of the results--one handed mowing. :D

[video=youtube;RIFAG9c2eHI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIFAG9c2eHI&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Well because I just purchased a bush scythe I read thru this whole thread ... I learned a lot ... also been working on the finer points brought out here in this thread ... I'm gonna agree now based my new experience going back to a previous post of mine ... that I was getting better results with a filed edge partially because when I filed I thinned out the blade more from then the friend who was just stoning it as is ... I also think that a fine filed (unpolished) edge is better than a stoned edge that isn't super sharp because it will still tend to grab the grass better.

I have my new bush blade filed down to where the file almost rides the chine. Then I've stoned it with good results in mowing weeds and brush. I'm gonna experiment with using various steels on the edge to see if it improves grass cutting.
 
Here's a good image of what the bevel of my Seymour blade looks like. Note the strong scratch pattern.

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(note: image linked from Facebook, so the image will go dead in about a month or so)
 
Your friend and mine, Ugalde, was nice enough to share this little Basque competition vid with me this morning.

[video=youtube;geX1VxKPG1c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geX1VxKPG1c&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
First couple of rows of the "yard hay".
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You can see the difference in the way the windrows stack up due to scythes and mowing styles. I mowed the lower swath and the boy is finishing the upper one. He seems to be working out his technique, and I'm trying to let him take the initiative as long as the cut is clean....
 
This recent video shows how scythes are just starting to be used in India to harvest wheat, instead of the slower method of squatting on the ground with a sickle, thanks to the efforts of 2 guys who went there to demonstrate the scythe at a bunch of villages:

[video=youtube;9Im_8sI0QFQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Im_8sI0QFQ[/video]
 
So wonderful to see the delight on their faces! I wonder if the tool takes off there if they'll progress to longer blades or not.
 
I've been working on some descriptive diagrams of blade curvature and impacts thereof on minimum swath depth with full edge engagement, and there have been some interesting insights in the process. Will post images soon. In other news, I've been getting some play time in with an older Gunas Euro blade (several years old, not current production) on the Longfellow snath prototype and have been getting very nice results out of the combo so far. Been a very busy season and I wish I could post more in this thread, but hosting images permanently has taken more time than I've had as of late. :)
 
I saw some of your diagrams and it took me a moment to figure out what you were up to with them. I'll be interested to see what you come up with once you sort it all out.
 
It's some fun stuff, but I'll need to write up a fair amount of explanatory material to go along with it because it deals with some principles that aren't often discussed, mostly around the subject of edge engagement.
 
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